If You're Hanging Around, I'm Holding the Noose
by Melfice
Summary: Set during 5x21. Being human is just about learning the motions - but, yeah, maybe there is just a speck of angel left. Dean/Castiel, SLASH.
1. part 1 of 2

**If You're Hanging Around, I'm Holding the Noose**

**Part 1/2**

_by Melfice_

Dean learned how to hot-wire a car before he learned how to shoot, learned how to break a man's arm and leg before he knew the difference between stock and barrel. He learned quickly, at age 8, when his father had gone and he heard Sam scream from inside the motel room – when the frog that Sam had picked up and adopted and devoted himself to for all of an hour turned into some twisted human-frog-beast _mutation_ and started trying to claw his eyes out.

Because the shotgun had been lying on the air conditioner where his father had left it, right next to the door when Dean fell into the room, and because he hadn't been thinking about how he didn't know. He hadn't been thinking about how to aim or how to shoot or the inaccurate bullet spray or the possibility of hitting Sam; he'd been thinking that Sam was in trouble and that _thing_ was causing it and he had to _do something_.

He'd done what any sensible eight year old boy would have done in his situation – and that is, he'd recalled all the times on television he'd seen anyone shooting a gun and he'd tried his damnedest to replicate it. Gun on his shoulder, close one eye, pull the trigger-

He hadn't hit Sam, but he'd hit himself. The stock had slammed right into his right cheek, sent him reeling back into the doorway, knocked the breath out of him in a way he hadn't expected. To this day he still doesn't know if he hit the creature, doesn't know if it had just been a lucky shot or if he had just scared it with the noise of the shotgun and his own cry of surprise, but the thing had _hopped_ past him in hysterics and fled across the parking lot in a flurry.

This memory is what he thinks of when Castiel picks up the double barrel shotgun, barrels still mostly intact, and holds it near his face as he looks down the junkyard at the targets Dean has set up. The actions are almost identical and Dean wonders if this is how everything starts, just mimicking an action and a stance that you've seen before.

He almost lets Cas learn his own mistake, almost chalks it up to a life lesson, but he doesn't have much to base it on; he can't expect an angel - and there's nothing else Dean can call him, _nothing_ else he could possibly be – to know any of this without being told. He's not even sure Castiel has seen much television.

So he steps to Castiel's right and he repositions it – though it's like trying to reposition a statue, all stiffness and concrete limbs that don't know how to let themselves be pulled.

"Stock – that's this end here – goes tight against your shoulder," he presses the wood there, into a shoulder that gives more than it did a month ago, "Left foot forward. Your left. Your _other_ left."

Dean knocks his boot against Cas' leg, scoots it forward until it's in the right spot – and Cas watches it the whole time, stares down at it like he's forgotten feet are something he can control. A twist of his boot and Dean kicks both legs apart across the dirt and dust, until they're a shoulder's width apart.

"One hand on the forearm," he instructs, and he moves Castiel's left to the wooden piece, waits until his fingers adjust and grip onto it before he lets go. Dean moves to Cas' right side then, takes Cas' right hand and moves it to the grip behind the trigger, "the other goes right here."

The beaten up truck behind them, missing three wheels and an engine, is the table where he's laid out their ammo and weapons. He took one of each and weighed them all in his hand, but he'd settled on something practical, something efficient. The shotgun is of decent weight, pump-action instead of lever, double barrel and an unaltered eighteen inches; it's a good weapon to learn from.

It looks foreign in Castiel's arms, like it wasn't made to fit there – but that doesn't make any sense. Castiel's body – and it is his now, not a single trace of Jimmy Novak lingering there – is a human body, with human arms and legs and the angel inside might operate it awkwardly, but it still knows the motions. The gun fits there, works where it is – it just _shouldn't_.

He instructs as best he can, moves Cas' arms and legs to where they should go, nudges his head into the proper position, but it's all trial and error. Point, don't aim. See the target, but let your body do the work; it's all motions.

The first shot echoes through the junkyard, ricochets off of a car near the barrel Dean painted a giant 'X' onto and scatters. The recoil is small, but Cas follows the force like he doesn't have a choice. His feet stagger backwards a step, his back against Dean's chest, Dean's hand shooting up to hold his elbow.

It doesn't hit the target, but it gets close, and it's not bad for a first time.

He pushes Castiel back into stance with one hand on each shoulder blade. The warmth he feels there, underneath palm and linen, is not entirely foreign, not entirely unreal, but isn't familiar. It courses through him like delayed static, like a memory of electricity more than anything, but it settles into his right arm and tingles just enough that he takes a long moment to let go.

Dean moves to Castiel's right.

"Then you pull the forearm to you," his hand moves over Cas' on the forend, grips over knuckles and digits and pulls the piece down. "Ejects the shell and loads the next one."

Castiel's trench and suit coat are lying on the hood of the truck, and Dean is momentarily distracted by the shirt cuffs rolled up at his elbows, by the smell of gunpowder and Earth. The feeling of static is a low thrum in his veins, that starts at his fingers and ends in his arm.

Dean grips Cas' hand and pushes it forward, locks the pump into place. "Reset the pin back into the firing position. One after each shot you fire."

Dean takes another step back and to the left and Castiel brings the stock back up to rest against his shoulder. He learns quick, if anything, but it's not like they've ever given him much choice. They're tumbling downhill through this apocalypse and there's no time for the six week correspondence course, no time for manuals and, honestly, this is just one step above handing Cas a sawed off shotgun and throwing him into the middle of the fray.

Dean had certainly considered it, but Sam had shot him a look, pulled him aside albeit briefly and – _'Jesus, Dean, don't you think maybe we're a little to blame for the fact he's lost, I don't know, everything? You think maybe you could throw him a bone – it's not like humanity comes with an __instruction manual.'_

And, seriously, he knows. He fucking knows.

The second shot gets close and there's an echo as the spray hits the side of the barrel. It's close.

Dean doesn't move from his place, just watches Castiel eject the shell, watches him go through the motions like he's remembered everything inch-by-inch.

The next shot isn't better, but it's not worse, and Dean let's Cas fire the last shot before he steps to his right again, pulling shells from the pocket of his jeans. He shows Cas how to fill the magazine, hands him shells one by one and watches him push them into the port with steady fingers. One at a time until there's three, until it all locks back in place and he's sliding the stock back into his shoulder.

It takes two more shells before he hits the 'X' dead on, four more before he gets the hang of reloading without moving the gun from his shoulder.

Dean's sitting on the radiator of the truck, rolling shells between his fingers, when Castiel lowers the shotgun and turns to him. He stares, like he wants to roll his eyes but is far too overcome with exasperation to do so, like saying anything at all is pushing his limits, and, "This doesn't seem very... useful. At all."

And then there's that.

Because he doesn't need to read minds to know what Castiel's been thinking for the past few days, because he's carrying it around like it's stapled to his forehead – all big glowing, neon lights proclaiming '_This Isn't What I Signed Up For_.'

Castiel is, for lack of a better word, bitter. At what, Dean's still not sure. God? Possibly. The angels? Most certainly. Dean himself? Why the fuck not. He's probably bitter at all of humanity, at Lucifer and Jimmy – and Dean gets it, he does. Because you don't go from being Superman to being Louis Lane and not be a _little bitter_.

It's been a gradual fade. Slowly, over time, Castiel's grace flickering out like an unwatched candle. It hadn't been overnight, hadn't been immediate, but the trip to Van Nuys had pretty much sealed the deal.

The thing is, Dean doesn't know how to deal with it. He doesn't know how to deal with the guilt right now – because it might be a little bit, or maybe a lot bit, his fault that all of this started – and he can't _fix it_ and there's just really not time right now. There's not enough fucking _time_ for Castiel right now, not enough time for anything but stopping all of this shit from _happening_, and he wants to make time – he really does.

But he can't and he can't deal with it right now, so he doesn't.

He rolls a shell between his fingers and holds it out, "Yeah, well, it's the best we've got."

It's not good enough, won't ever be good enough, but, after a pregnant pause, Castiel takes the shell and loads it into the clip.

Dean watches him, watches him slide the shell in with his thumb, and thinks to himself, '_He could die_.'

The next shot shatters the windshield of the shit car on their right, a spray of glass onto metal and dirt, and Castiel stares at it like he's watching paint dry. He's stopped aiming at the 'X' completely.

Maybe this human thing makes more sense when you're born into it.

Dean pulls another shell out and tosses it. It gets caught in Castiel's right hand and he stares at it for a long moment before loading it into the magazine. It ends up in another spray of broken glass, and maybe that stare isn't blank – maybe it's fascination – because he's not even aiming at the barrel anymore.

Castiel takes the remaining shells from Dean's hand, loads them with his thumb and pumps once. Dean slides off the radiator and squats in front of it, just as the two barrels raise over his head and shatter the glass windshield of the pickup he'd been sitting on. It explodes glass over the coats and weapons still laying on the hood, over the dirt on either side, over Dean's head.

The forearm moves up once and down once and Dean is still hunched down, unable to watch anything but the twist in Castiel's leg as he turns on his heel. The recoil of the shotgun in his ears, a shell by his feet.

It's the first time in a long while that he thinks back on the Dean and Cas he met in the future and he wonders briefly if he'd taught that Cas to shoot as well, wonders on how interlocked these events are. He wonders, briefly, what can come of this.

The shells are cased in green and red plastic and they litter the brown-red dirt like a dollar store Christmas ornament, a spattering of festive colors and brass. The last one ejects from the chamber and rolls against Dean's boot, Castiel's personal mission to destroy every intact piece of glass within shotgun range temporarily thwarted by the empty magazine.

He looks up at the stock-still angel and raises an eyebrow. "Finished?"

The shotgun is balanced on one shoulder and it's an odd image, oddly familiar and oddly sickening, and it twists something in Dean's gut. Castiel nods his head once. "It would appear so."

The hands he extends to Dean is a motion, precise down to the inch, like something he's seen someone do and committed to memory. Dean takes it because this is him being supportive, this is him easing Castiel into their downward spiral instead of pushing him down it headfirst. These motions are the only thing Cas has to go by, the only thing he has imprinted on his brain, until he goes through each one and makes them real.

Static, tingling in his fingers and his palm and his wrist and all the way up his arm, and Castiel pulls him to his feet with one strong, human arm. He doesn't let go immediately and there's that smell of gunpowder again, like it's clinging desperately for life on Cas' shirt. The fingers holding his are dirty, darkened from the gun oil and dust on the shells, but they are the briefest hint of electricity over his skin.

"You're going after death."

A statement, not a question, but Dean nods anyway. "That's the plan."

"He's going to know you're coming," he continues, and he looks briefly at the treetops – or maybe further, like it's a habit he has that he can't stop. "You should be careful."

And, yeah, that's pretty much the best advice he's going to get. Between Death and Crowley – who isn't on their side, but isn't _not_ on their side.... Dean isn't even really sure what to think of Crowley, because he's helping them, but to his own ends, and it's not like they've invited him into Team Free Will or anything, but he's certainly making himself at home _anyway_.

Then there's Sam and his whole Lucifer idea that, okay, pretty much just needs to not the fuck happen ever, if Dean has anything to say about it. Like that hasn't been in the back of his mind every second _since_ Sam brought it up. Because now he's going to Chicago and Sam is _not_ and – and Sam's an adult, sure, but at this point Dean is seriously starting to reconsider his stance that Sam knows what's good for him.

Castiel's last descent into humanity probably couldn't have come at a worse time, because it isn't like Dean doesn't have enough shit to do. Not that Cas is sitting around on his hands or anything, but Dean keeps catching glimpses and glances into this haphazard learning process and it's not easing his mind any.

Because Castiel is trying, but he's not so much descending into humanity as he is stumbling through it. He eats, sure he eats, he eats whatever they tell him to eat, but he forgets. He hasn't had to eat in a millennium and now he's got the metabolism of a damned gazelle. He eats whatever Sam gives him, even eats Bobby's disgusting cooking; he eats like it's going to suddenly go out of fashion, but he still _forgets_.

He sleeps, on occasion, when his body gives out and his eyes can't stay open. He'll sleep anywhere – on the couch, across the floor, kitchen table, standing completely upright in a dark hallway – but he only sleeps when he can't _not_ sleep any longer and that's a problem too.

Cas is smart and he's been among humans long enough to _get it_. He does the motions, over and over, but it's the small shit that's grating on Dean's subconscious like...

Like guilt.

And there's no way he can still read minds, but Castiel tilts his head to look back at Dean, eyes narrowed as though he understands and doesn't all at the same time. "I made my choice, Dean."

And Dean laughs, and it sounds hollow to his own ears; it hasn't sounded whole in a long time. "Yeah, you made the choice. After we took away all the others and gave you a shove towards it."

It's when he goes to pull his hand away that the grip on his tightens, that the static continues until he feels it in his ears.

"You didn't force me to do this," and even human Castiel's eyes are an alien blue, like they can't possibly belong to him, like there's something in them that doesn't really exist. "You can't blame yourself for everything."

Which is untrue. Dean's gotten pretty damned good at being guilt ridden, party of one.

"You're human," Dean says, as though it's not blindingly obvious by this point, as though skirting around it makes it stop existing.

"I'm not dead," is the reply Dean gets, and it's a little uplifting to know humanity isn't that low on Castiel's List of Things That Blow, but Cas licks his chapped lips and stares back up at the trees and he doesn't say it but Dean hears it anyway.

_I'm not in Hell_.

And he feels it like someone punching him in the chest, like it takes the wind out of him and stretches it in front of him.

Castiel lets go of his hand then and the warmth, the static is immediately gone, drawn out of him like it's being siphoned. Dean grabs the retreating digits, like he can drag the electricity out of the air, like it can't leave as long as he knows it's there.

And not for the first time he wonders if this was supposed to happen, if this is another tiny cog in the machine that is his life, that's all patterns and blueprints that the angels have already completed. If this happening to Cas is all part of the plans, if him going to Chicago is where they intended for him to go.

"You can't have everything and still end an apocalypse," Castiel tells him, like it makes any of this any easier. "We've all made sacrifices, Dean."

It shouldn't have to be true.

It reminds him of the time, years back, when he and Sam had gone fishing in Michigan. The air had been crisp, leaves slowly changing as the days moved into autumn, and the rickety boat they had borrowed leaked in seven different places, but they'd still caught a cooler full of bass before the sun had gone down.

He remembers being up to his elbows in fish intestines, using his knife to lodge out a bone, deep in thought and focused on his task, when Sam had taken one of the still-whole fish and mashed it into his face. That had been a prelude to thrown punches and flailing around in the mud near the shore, with Dean trying to rub the fish guts on his hands onto Sam's face and Sam near fucking _giggling_ about Dean kissing a fish.

It reminds him, because when he pulls the hand in his grasp aside and presses into Castiel it is a lot like kissing a fish.

There is less slime, less taste of murky lake water, no smell of fish, but it's all very similar all the same. It's cold, cold and unresponsive, soft but not inviting. Castiel smells like gunpowder and earth, not like lake water, but his breath halts completely and there's not even a twitch of movement from his lips; it's better than kissing a wall, but kissing a fish is still kissing a fish.

It's almost too much. It's almost too fucking hilarious and too fucking sad, because of course Castiel isn't going to do anything, of course he isn't going to reciprocate _whatever-the-fuck this is_. Dean doesn't even know what it is, doesn't even know what _any of this is anymore_.

His other hand clutches Cas' linen shirt tightly, like he can't keep himself upright without being grounded. When he glances up he chokes out a half laugh, almost loses himself completely, because Castiel's head is titled just so and he's _confused_. Of course he's confused, but he's looking at Dean like he's just brought up a Buffy reference that he doesn't understand rather than having just given the chastest kiss of his admittedly adventurous life to an angel.

"What are you doing?" Castiel asks him, but the weight of the words makes Dean feel like Castiel probably does understand – maybe more than Dean does. He's not confused, he's just lost. Like maybe these are motions that he doesn't know, like he's been mimicking everything up to this point and now he just doesn't _know what to do_.

And Dean can't let go, still can't fucking let go, so he manages another laugh. "Maybe I just wanted to know if it was possible to fuck this up any more than it already is. Turns out that's a ten-four. Mission accomplished, everyone go home. Over and out."

Cas exhales loudly, like he couldn't possibly be more exasperated. "I don't understand."

"It's an expression-"

And Cas steps in, pins Dean against the radiator with legs and hips and eyes, the crunch of broken glass underfoot. "No, Dean, I don't understand _you_."

He doesn't explain, just curls his fingers around Cas' sleeve and pulls him forward, kisses him again in lieu of saying anything. Castiel mimics his motions, mimics the way Dean's lips part and his tongue traces a line – and there's the static again. A low burn, just enough that it could be his imagination, could be something unreal in his veins.


	2. part 2 of 2

**If You're Hanging Around, I'm Holding the Noose**

**Part 2/2**

_by Melfice_

He remembers the day he met Castiel – long before he'd taken Jimmy Novak's body, long before Dean had been given his own back. He remembers the feeling of hands digging in, into chest and lungs and ribs, and he remembers the _pull_. Pieces connected where they'd been broken, where nothing had worked for so long, and those hands had crafted like they had know what they were doing – like they knew how to fix him.

It's difficult to forget the sudden start of his heart, where it had once been quiet and had become a loud beat in his ears again. He'd heard it in his ears, against his chest and in his throat, and the feeling had been so sudden, so foreign that it had almost scared him. It had been a slow, steady pull back into motion – his lungs again learned to breathe in and out, over and over, and the subsequent feelings had been completely smothering, so overwhelming that he'd been almost certain the pieces had been put back together wrong.

More than anything he remembers the blinding, searing light. The electricity that crackled and popped, wrapped itself around every bone and muscle, mended blood back into the skin, that had ran through him like he was a live wire. It had set body and lungs and heart into motion, but it hadn't _fixed_ him.

He hadn't known it was Castiel until they'd met face-to-face. When he'd realized that those hands and that electricity and that burn _was_ _Castiel_. Because there had been a sudden pull, that started in his arms and ended up in his ribs, like all of those organs were borrowed and knew who they belonged to.

The mark on his arm had been the worse, had burned and ached like it didn't belong, like his body had to reject it or he'd be swallowed alive. It had gotten worse the closer Castiel got to him, the closer he stood in his space. It had grown like an itch, until it had left Dean tense and unmoving, until he'd been left wondering what would happen if Castiel had just... touched it.

It hadn't taken long after being brought back to life for Dean to start to feel like something was wrong. Because he's a human, a person, a mind and a body, and he's not just a fucking jigsaw that the pieces fit back together just-so. Because you can't just put the mind back in the body, dust off the dirt and assume everything is fine.

He'd confronted Castiel about it, because, really, what else could he do? Castiel had gone into Hell and picked up all the pieces – but he'd obviously forgotten something in the fire and brimstone. He must have left behind small pieces that weren't important, that God hadn't instructed him to grab in his haste. Dean had been certain from the moment he'd woken up in his own grave that there was something of his still laying in Hell, abandoned and dying, because he'd felt the absence like a hole in his chest.

And he'd had his fists in the lapel's of Castiel's coat, desperate and demanding, because Cas had _forgotten _something. He'd gathered the pieces and he'd put Dean back together like some sort of fucking brain teaser, but there was something he'd left out – there was something he hadn't put back.

And Castiel had accepted the anger, had accepted the mistreatment, because there hadn't been anything else he _could_ do. Because when prompted, he'd fixed Dean with a stare, expression steeled, and informed Dean that he'd _already given him everything._

It's taken a long time, far too long, for him to realize that there are pieces of Castiel in him, like shards of glass. They ache like splinters, like a forgotten piece that the skin has healed over, and it aches worse the more he ignores it.

Because there's more of Castiel's grace inside him these days than there is inside Castiel.

It seems like a waste these days. Because there are times when Castiel still gives him that look, stares at him like he holds all the answers, like he holds the world in his hands – and Dean is sorry to disappoint, but he really _doesn't_. He's an ordinary man, brittle and breakable and _human_ and he's not extraordinary or some superhero that can save _everyfuckingthing_.

He's fragile and he's falling too, crashing underneath this wave like everyone else, and if his head is above the surface then it's only temporary.

When Cas touches the mark he left on Dean's arm it's in Bobby's junkyard, with Dean's backside pressed up against the radiator of a bullet-ridden pickup. It's like a flare shoots through his body, like a flame suddenly fanned. It erupts into heat and it spreads like wildfire, consumes him until he's gasping against Castiel's mouth.

There shouldn't be anything left, nothing that sparks like it does, but everything underneath Castiel's hands is that low thrum, that vibration that Dean feels in every bone.

And Castiel is inexperienced and newly-human and he doesn't even know how to kiss, but his hands map across Dean's skin like he's already disturbingly familiar with every inch. His lips are learning, but his hands seem to know how to take him apart, seem to know how all of these pieces fit together.

Fingers dig in and Cas presses him into the metal like he's unbreakable – like patience isn't something he's familiar with, like he doesn't know how to take his time. They don't have time for patience.

And none of it makes absolutely any sense at all.

Because Castiel is completely human. The air is cold and Castiel's hands are cold – of course they're cold. Except where they're burning across Dean's skin like he's on-fucking-fire. A trail of heat and static all along his stomach where those fingers are working underneath his shirt, pulling it over his ribs like Dean might _burn alive_ if he doesn't. And, God, maybe he will, because there's beads of sweat forming on his brow and each breath feels like he's taking it in a damned _sauna_.

When those fingers move to dig into his hips, one insistent knee sliding in between his thighs, Dean briefly feels that familiar stab of guilt that never seems to completely leave him. Because, okay, he doesn't even remember the last time he got laid. It's been a long damned time. Too long. And it is the end of days and all of that shit, but, fuck, he does have a _conscience_. And it had been completely different when it was Chastity the Hooker about to take an angel's virginity rather than _himself_.

It's a fucking stupid thing to waffle over now, especially since it's Castiel that has him shoved against the truck, hands already working at the buttons on Dean's Levis, and _Dean_ being the one that is trying to catch up. It honestly doesn't _feel_ like he's taking anything at all from Cas, but the guilt is still there regardless.

It goes until Castiel grabs his jaw and stares at him hard. "Stop it, Dean."

So he tries to stop thinking.

He undoes the buttons of Castiel's shirt, pushes dirty white cloth over too-warm shoulders, and he doesn't think. He presses fingers and palms against the scarred, still tender skin that the shirt reveals, presses until Castiel gasps into his mouth – almost pain and almost pleasure that is all too human to be coming from him.

The shirt stays on, gathered at Castiel's elbows, but it doesn't seem to hinder his movements any when he reaches between them and presses the heel of his hand against the straining of denim there. And Dean's hips do buck at that, at the way Castiel's wrist moves his hand in a slow circular motion, like he knows exactly what it is he's doing – but, _fuck_, where the hell had he even learned it?

"_Fuck_," Dean breathes, and closes his eyes. Okay, it has been a while, but he does sort of have a reputation – or at least he's fucked enough people that he's not new at any of this shit – and it's going to look really bad if he gets off in two seconds from Castiel fondling him.

And, God, not even _really_ fondling. Just touching him through his pants, the heat of his skin bleeding through the denim, and he's biting his lip so hard at this point that he's close to breaking the skin. His own fingers find purchase against Castiel's ribs and he grips hard, like it can ground him in some way.

The buttons of his jeans are already undone, so he almost doesn't notice Castiel's hand moving until his fingers are skirting underneath the waistband of his boxers. He has a brief moment of Thinking Too Much before Castiel wraps five fingers around him and breathes, "_Dean", _and then he's done thinking completely – brain gone and shut off and fucking _useless_.

Dean chokes on his own breath and Castiel presses lips against his jaw, against his neck, but Castiel still doesn't find time for patience. Because his other hand presses flat against Dean's hip and slides down, taking jeans and boxers with it, and the air is cool and the metal of the radiator is unpleasantly, startling cold against his skin, but those hands are _warm_.

One of Cas' shoes scuffs along the dirt, moves glass and empty shells to the side - and it's not slow, not graceful, but when Castiel moves to his knees on the dirt it's probably the hottest thing Dean has ever seen. He glances up once, perhaps to see that Dean is paying attention and not wallowing in his own guilt again, and then he stretches those wonderful, perfect lips and _swallows him_.

And Dean doesn't even know what noises he makes at that – something helpless and embarrassing and incriminating – but _fuck_.

He doesn't look. He presses a hand over his eyes and clenches it into a fist so tight that he feels his nails digging into his palm, because the sight is_ too much_. And he's really trying his damnedest to stick to his plan of lasting longer than five fucking minutes, because he's not a god damned _teenager_ and he has more self control than that.

His other hand curls into Castiel's hair and uncurls again and he's _really_ trying not to thrust into Castiel's mouth because he doesn't want to _choke_ him, and he focuses on his breathing and, really, even that's getting more difficult by the minute. Cas pulls back slightly, but doesn't take him out of his mouth – just wraps a hand around the rest of his length and starts moving his tongue across the head-

And Dean is going to kill whoever taught Castiel this. Shoot them dead between the fucking _eyes_ because _holy fuck_.

He does grab Castiel's head then, digs his fingers into his hair and clings to him, because he's absolutely gone. He's gasping for air, metal of the truck digging angrily into his back as he arches, and the cold is nothing compared to the boiling in his blood.

He doesn't see stars, because he doesn't see _anything_. Vision black, entire body tense – except for the way he's shaking, limbs twitching without his consent. It's a slow descent and he's still coming down from it when Castiel presses his lips against his jaw again.

It reminds him to breathe.

"I think I would do it again," Castiel murmurs against his skin, and Dean groans.

"Fuck, Cas, I think you're going to have to give me a _minute_-"

He feels the smile against his jaw and Castiel pulls away, and amused is a good look for him. "I mean that if I were given the choice I would make the same decisions again; I would fall again."

Dean swallows tightly and let's Castiel pull his jeans back up around his hips.

There's a light on from the house that he doesn't want to comment on, but it's like a ticking clock and it settles a heavy weight into his throat that he can't swallow.

He buttons his jeans and catches Castiel's wrist as he starts to button up his shirt. His skin is cold. "I know no one's probably told you, but these things usually go both ways. I'm not _that_ much of a douchebag."

"I think we're out of time," Castiel replies, and it's harder to hear it from him, a little worse when he slowly pulls his hand away from Dean's and buttons his shirt the rest of the way up.

And it's cold. It's really fucking cold and Dean wonders why he isn't wearing a jacket, why he has all of these chills.

"You'll be here when I get back from Chicago," Dean says, and it's hardly a question, not even a request, but he waits for an answer all the same.

Cas picks up the shotgun from where he laid it against the pickup. "It is likely I will be inside when you return. Sam insists I sleep at 'normal hours'."

And, okay, he hadn't mean _you'll still be standing in Bobby's junkyard when I get back_, but this human thing is a learning process and Castiel is getting there.

It's definitely a start.


End file.
